Editing Glossary

Continuity EditingContinuity editing requires the director to try to make the film reality as much like the audience’s reality as possible. This means the film is trying to recreate the world us to make it easier for the audience to understand

Establishing shotA shot used near the beginning of a scene to show the relevance of a certain object/person to the main character of the story line

Shot reverse shotWhen one character is show looking at another character , and then the other character is show looking “back” at the first character. Since the characters are showing facing in opposite direction the viewer unconsciously assumes they are looking at each other.

180 degree Rule

180 Degree RuleThis is a rule where when filming you can only film within a 180 degree angle because if you was to film outside the angle it will look like the two characters would have swapped places and that’s just confusing. Usually used in diegetic dialogue scenes

CutIn editing, A single unbroken strip of film

Straight cutWhen The footage is just ended normally

Fade outThe act of ending the shot by having it slowly fade to black

DissolveWhen the cut is dissolved it makes it look like one scene gradually transforms to the next.

Wipe cutWhen the shot is edited to look like it is being wiped off the screen in the transition towards the next scene

Jump cutA jump cut is an abrupt cut between two shoots that calls attention to itself because it does not match the shots.